Losing You Again
by PoissontjeA
Summary: The story focuses mainly on Peeta. Because you gotta love the boy with the bread. It takes place in the time after Mockingjay and does not take into account the epilogue. Instead its starts after the last chapter, though some time has passed.
1. Chapter 1

Peeta's hands were stained a dozen different colours, the tips of his fingers bright blue from the latest jar of food colouring that now lay shattered on the floor. Angrily he ran his hands across his face, wiping at the tears that now ran in blue streaks down his cheeks. With a loud smash the next glass jar hit the wall, its crimson contents leaking out into the mess of colours that ran down the once stark white surface.

A door slammed behind him and Peeta spun round, a jar of burnt sienna already in his hand. Haymitch barely glanced at him as he swung past the distraught boy, glass crunching beneath his boots as he swaggered through the living room and into the kitchen.

Peeta stood frozen, his arm still raised and his fingers shaking around the small glass jar. He stared at the retreating, filthy back of his former mentor, seething. The jar of food colouring slipped from his grasp, clattering to the marble floor and rolling into the hallway towards the crisp white envelope that lay unopened at the front door.

"Boy!"

Peeta sank to his knees, shards of glass digging into his skin through his jeans. He rested his hands on the floor. Small drops of crimson blood swelled from his vibrant fingers.

"Boy!"

Sweeping them through the mess on the floor he piled the shards of stained coloured glass onto a heap. Smears of colour spread across the marble surface, streaked with blood and tears.

"BOY!"

He rose slowly, with a glazed look and his brow furrowed in either annoyance or pain, he wasn't sure which. Haymitch was about to bellow again when he entered the kitchen, and instead sat there with his mouth gaping horribly and the anger brought on by white spirit clear on his face. In his hands was a slab of cake, which he had been smothering with generous amounts of white icing.

"Why are you here, Haymitch?" Peeta whispered, and for some reason his voice shook. It might have been his anger from earlier, or was that pain, or worse, fear? It might have been the adrenaline, or the loss of blood. The cake definitely had something to do with it. The cake that Haymitch was stuffing his face on. The cake, and the envelope.

Haymitch had sliced himself another slab of cake with his pocket knife, pulling it apart with his hands and stuffing it into his mouth. He ran his fingers along the rim of the bowl of icing and continued shovelling cake without so much as glancing at Peeta.

"What do you-?"

"I tried to call you. To ask. You didn't listen so, helped myself to cake," he grumbled drunkenly, and Peeta wished he'd hurled the jars of food colouring at his old mentor instead of at the wall. Disgusted, he opened his mouth to start shouting at the drunken fool, the insensitive bastard, when Haymitch spoke again.

"You got mail." This time he looked right into Peeta's eyes, and for a moment he was as sober as he could get. What he saw in those eyes scared Peeta, for they were filled with the same emotions he was feeling. Anger. Fear. Pain. Loss. No, not loss. Not yet.

With a heavy heart, he knew that it was time to do what he'd been dreading from the moment he heard the squeak of the letter box and seen the envelope lying on the simple brown welcome mat. Peeta walked back through the living room, leaving bright coloured footsteps and crushed glass in his wake. He heard Haymitch get up behind him, the crunch of his heavy boots on glass as he followed Peeta to the front door. For a moment he just stood there, staring at the envelope that lay so innocently at his feet. He took a deep breath. Then another. All the while he couldn't turn to face Haymitch, whose stare burned a hole in his back. Finally he knelt down and lifted it up. Staring back up at him was a symbol that sent another wave of paralyzing emotions over Peeta.

A gold ring, with at its centre a mockingjay.


	2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER: As obvious as this should be, seeing as this is , I dont own any of the characters etc. from the Hunger Games. I just love 'em.**

The gleaming logo in the corner of the envelope was imprinted into the paper itself, and glinted teasingly in the sunlight. The tiny gold bird at the centre of the ring had changed from the one on the original pin. It was still a mockingjay. The same mutt, but with a new addition in its beak. A small gold arrow pierced the length of the ring. That had been Coins idea, before the execution of course. Nobody had known about it, let alone Peeta. But after everything that had happened snippets such had this one became common knowledge. He'd probably heard it from Haymitch, or from her.

The idea was that Coin wanted to renew the Mockingjay. The revolution had ended. Its use as a symbol for the uprising was no longer needed. Coins plan was to give the symbol a new life as an image of the power and unity of the people, by using Katniss as a figurehead and her story as an inspiration. The arrow, of course, represented Katniss' struggles in the arena and against the Capitol. Peeta tore his eyes from the logo and with a steadying gulp of air ripped open the crisp envelope.

His eyes flew across the page, barely registering every other word.

"Dear Mr Mellark...New Panem Constitution...Sorry to inform you that..."

And then her name. He stopped dead in his tracks, his breath trapped in his throat.

"...Miss Katniss Everdeen..."

He couldn't make himself read any further. The words blurred on the page. All except for that name. It burned on the paper, burned into his mind. It was all he could see. All he could think.

"Katniss..."

Suddenly the letter was ripped from his hands. The flames from her burning name spread from his mind like one of the old thirteen explosives. He spun round, his face contorted in uncharacteristic rage. He'd been very out of character since that envelope had dropped through the letter-box, but he had to know. He had to know, even if-

The look on Haymitch's face put out Katniss' fire faster than the harshest district twelve blizzard. Its chill set in his chest, weighing down his heart and making it sink like a rock.

"Haymitch...?" Barely a whisper, more of a croak, his voice cracked and it was painful to voice the terrible thoughts that raced through his mind. The air seemed full of them; it had grown as thick as the custard he filled his buns with sometimes, pressing down on him from all sides. Everything seemed to slow down. Except for his mind, which was racing along a track from the worst to the most unimaginable scenarios.

Haymitch seemed to choke on the words. He coughed. Cleared his throat. Sucked in a large breath of air.

"Due to this illness...staying in the Peoples Capitol...indefinite period of time...a visit is not recommended...contagion...kept in isolated care..."

Another fit of spluttering, raspy coughing. Peeta couldn't stand it anymore. He had to get out. Breathe.

By the time his mind had caught up with his feet he found himself half running, half stumbling out of the Victors Village and into the Seam. Without even thinking about it he knew where he wanted to go. A new determination guided his feet towards the Meadow. It was strange. He had only ever walked this path once. She had taken him there last year, not long after they had returned to their home in District Twelve.

He could barely believe that she had opened this place to him, this secret haven that was hers and hers alone. No, not alone. Peeta had felt like an intruder the first time he had trudged through the twisted roots of the trees. So out of place. But she had made him feel welcome, at home, cushioned by the peaceful woods. Now he raced through them, no longer an outsider but someone who belonged. He longed for the comforting embrace that he had felt when he was here with her, that had brought her out here more than her need for food had.

He never really understood how he found that place again, deep in the wilds of twelve, but he knew that he couldn't think of anywhere he'd rather be. Besides the Capitol, at Katniss' side. Holding her safe in his arms.

Throwing himself in front of the fireplace in the rickety, run-down cabin Peeta curled up, tucking his knees under his chin. Trying desperately to hold himself together by pulling himself inwards, hugging his legs towards his chest.

The sun rose and sank again in the time that Peeta lay balled up on the cold cabin floor. The familiar orange hues of the early evening dragged him out of his trance-like state, and he slowly emerged from the cabin to watch the sun set over the little lake. It had already lowered itself below the line of trees that surrounded the clearing, but its orange glow still painted the sky. It reminded Peeta of the ruined wall, a lifetime away in the Victors Village. Splashes of red, orange and yellow leaked into the light blue sky, running into each other and darkening as the light slowly dimmed.

Peeta stood by the lake until the last of the colours had faded, still as a stone sentinel amongst the silent trees. The chill of the dark night forced him back into the cabin, where he found some wood piled in a corner. Probably left by those refugees from district 8 that Katniss had told him about. Katniss... He couldn't let himself think about her. Couldn't let those thoughts creep back into his head, where they would only latch onto any sanity that remained and fester. He pushed the desperate, painful tempest out of his mind and focused on his immediate problems.

For an hour Peeta tried desperately to light a fire in the small fireplace, but the absence of matches and his lack of know-how left him with ice-cold hands and numb, useless fingers filled with splinters. Deflated and shivering he curled up in the only chair, trying to catch some sleep. Instead he found himself dragged into the deep pit of constant worries that had settled in his mind.

Peace never came, and as the early morning sun lit up the sky he lifted himself out of his tangle on the chair. Hunger forced his feet to move in search of food, and he wandered through the woods for hours. _She would know_, he thought. _She thrived here, but not me. I'm just a clueless baker's boy from the Seam. _Eventually Peeta turned back towards the lake, and kneeling down by the water's edge he filled himself up with the cool liquid.

The young victor spent four days in the cabin, feeling anything but victorious. It was almost like he had drowned in the depths of the icy lake, his mind was black and empty as a cave. He couldn't face the thoughts, the fears, the pain that were hidden deep within the cavern, threatening to rise up and tear him apart.

Peeta spent his days wandering around the empty woods. They seemed devoid of life, as if the animals had all fled from his dark presence. His hunger was so severe that he could barely feel or think of anything else. It pushed away all thoughts of her, brought with it not just an emptiness deep in his gut but also a hollow emptiness in his heart and mind.

On the fifth day Peeta stumbled once again out of the little comfort of the cabin. The cold of the night had seeped in through every crack, seeped into his skin and frozen him solid as ice. The boy himself had an icy look about him; his skin seemed to have lost any natural glow. Instead it had a grey tint to it, or a slight blue sheen. His expression was a frozen, frigid, blank stare and his blond hair had been tugged and ruffled into a bird's nest of sorts. If there had been any birds around one might have perched on it, but Peeta hadn't seen a single living creature since he entered what was supposed to be their realm.

Suddenly Peeta stumbled over a reaching root of some tree, and he felt the earth yank him face first into its musty surface. He fell perhaps too easily, but all the energy from his previous anger had long seeped from him.

What he found whilst he lay in the damp dirt made him jump up, partly out of joy but mostly out of shock.


End file.
